5 And the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of it.

Transcription

1 Exodus 7:1 2 1 Then the LORD said to Moses, See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet. 2 You are to say everything I command you, and your brother Aaron is to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his country. 3 But I will harden Pharaoh s heart, 4 he will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions, my people the Israelites. 5 And the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of it. 1

2 Proverbs 4:23 23 Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life. Matthew 15:19 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. Proverbs 27:19 As water reflects a face, so a man s heart reflects the man. Luke 6:45 2

3 45 The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks. Ezekiel 36:26 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. Deuteronomy 30:6 6 The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live. Philippians 2: Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. The biblical picture is that God does the decisive work of heart transplant and heart circumcision and heart unhardening, and we are immediately participants in this miracle as conscious, intentional, willing actors renouncing the old heart, cutting away with all of the opposition we can muster the old life, and embracing the new and feeding the new tenderness of heart on God s word and by God s Spirit. John Piper 3

4 Jeremiah 29:13 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. Psalm 27:8 8 My heart says of you, Seek his face! Your face, LORD, I will seek. Seek definition: search for, try to find, look for, be on the lookout for, be after, hunt for, be in quest of "they sought shelter from the winter snows" Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. (James 4:8) By DJuana Dfitz Fitzpatrick 4

5 I had this preconceived notion that God continually speaks to us and tells us what to do and where to go. No one ever told me how to deal when God is silent. What am I suppose to do when I stop hearing God speak and I am not given any instructions? I ve heard about situations when God stop talking, but I thought He stopped speaking if the person was doing something wrong. Everyday I woke up seeking God and waiting to hear from Him and waiting for the next instruction. The beginning of this year I was hearing so much from Him and I knew what he wanted me to do. I did it. At the beginning of this summer, however, the speaking stopped. I would wake up seeking God and waiting to hear something and I got nothing. There I was sitting praying and seeking God and I got nothing. I began to reflect over my life and tried to see if I was doing something wrong. Was I saying the wrong thing? Did I not follow out assignments correctly? I was pretty sure I was doing things right, but it was an overwhelming feeling of insignificance on my part. Slowly I started doing my own thing again. I stopped seeking God (He wasn t speaking to me anyway) and I started doing what I wanted to do. I still prayed, but I did a lot of the talking and stopped listening. I read and studied my Bible as a routine. Yet, I abandoned everything God had originally set up. I got away with that for a good two months. At the end of the second month, nothing was going right. God was still taking care of me, but he was not blessing anything I started myself. I set on my bed one morning in silence and demanded to hear from God. I spoke aloud, God speak to my heart! I need to hear from you! I need to know what to do! Nothing 5

6 I left that quiet time angry and upset. Fine, you don t want to talk to me, I won t speak to you, I said. I went downstairs of my home and turned on the television and begin watching a movie. In one of the scenes in the movie a father and daughter was driving down the road. The father was instructing the daughter which way to go. Then they came to an open highway and the father didn t give anymore instructions. The daughter became restless and started asking her dad, where do I go? He remained asleep and mumbled to her just keep going. She started to get more restless. After a while she decided that she would exit the highway and find a place to get a map. She got the map and was trying to read it. She started driving again and began to go the wrong way. Her dad woke up and saw that she was going the wrong way and saw her trying to read the map. The father snatched the map and looked at it and told her the map was outdated and they were going the wrong way. He told her I know the way why can t you just trust me? She replied, You went to sleep and didn t tell me anything else! Well there was nothing else to tell you. Just stay on the highway and keep going! he replied. This movie was God s way of letting me see that that this particular situation is a lot like what I was going through. God was giving me directions and when the directions stopped I assumed he didn t care anymore. God s silence does not mean that he doesn t care or that he has left you. His silence has different meanings in different situations. For some, like myself, it means that we are to keep doing what we have been doing until God tells us differently. 6

7 There are those that have prayed for something and you hear no answer, well, perhaps that s God letting you know you will not be getting that. Or you will not be getting that right now. Regardless, God s silence is a time for you to exercise faith and to prove you trust God at all times. I have learned my lesson. I learned to have peace in God s silence and I know I cannot become anxious and start making my own decisions. Psalm 119:10 (NIV84) 10 I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. Psalm 119:2 (NIV84) 2 Blessed are they who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart. Psalm 119:11 11 I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. 7

8 Psalm 78:8 And not be like their fathers a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that did not prepare its heart to know and follow God and whose spirit was not faithful to God. Psalm 119:36 (NIV84) 36 Turn my heart toward your statutes and not toward selfish gain. Psalm 81: But my people did not listen to my voice; Israel would not submit to me. 8

9 12 So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels. 13 Oh, that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways! Ezekiel 7:23 Instead, he turned and went into his palace, and did not take even this to heart. 24 And all the Egyptians dug along the Nile to get drinking water, because they could not drink the water of the river. 25 Seven days passed after the LORD struck the Nile. Proverbs 29:1 1 A man who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed without remedy. 9